i'm out of practice, and you smell like roses <3

[ALPHA !]

never give in
i've been letting my mind win the war with my heart
you are timeless
i am a fool in love with time

He had been thinking. Not a random or, in any way, out of the ordinary event, but he had been thinking. Deep thinking, not the the silly pressing questions like 'why are we here' and 'is there life after death.' No, Alpha had stumbled across something new, something he had never tried to disprove before, whereas he had sought to find fault with every tell-tale truth he had encountered in his recent discovery of self-awareness. He had taken her for granted. He had taken the feelings for granted. He had taken the whole damned institution for granted, and now the world was being destroyed around him and all he could think about was how he had been played. None of it existed. The fairy-tales he had read as a boy meant nothing in this world, in this time, and perhaps they had never meant anything at all. Yet he tried to be the person all the stories described. Tried to save the world, keep his interests from falling into the clutches of evil, but what thanks did he get? Did he get any? Rejection. Echo looked right through him, dismissed him for the deeds he did in his spare time; during the times where his mind raged with inconsistencies and he couldn't settle on one personality, or if he did, it was always the wrong personality. Despite all the bodies, all the blood, and all the screaming, Alpha was built for more than just killing. He had had such great plans for Echo and himself, but they had shattered. One and all, because of Paul. Because he was a killer. And because he had ignorantly misinterpreted the meaning of the phrase, 'in love.'

He hadn't known Chloe for very long. Indeed, it had been barely a month, but he fancied that he loved her. It seemed to be a trend with the people Alpha loved. As soon as Echo had been guided into the Dollhouse, he had known. The slight catch of his breath, the sudden need to smooth down his shirt, and to hide behind Whiskey because he was afraid to make a bad first impression; they had been the hints. With Chloe, these hints had not been present, but the thumping of his heart as she had found him in the tunnels, the desperate need to keep the serial killer from taking hold when she was around, his longing to hold her and to charm her, these had replaced the old, old-as-time facts of his obsession with Echo. Alpha ran his hands over the tablecloth, spun the wine glasses just so, and made sure the silverware were all in line with each other, before dashing off to the kitchen just in time to keep the crème brulee from becoming tough and burning the sugar coating. He gave the kitchen a last look, made sure he hadn't forgotten anything, then put the food on a cart and removed his apron. Time? Eight. She would be here soon, he hoped. She didn't seem like the type of person who would be late to anything. Alpha grinned at himself once more in the mirror and shook his head hastily. That smile wouldn't do. Too maniacal, too psychotic. The only thing he would kill tonight were butchers, and that was only if they showed up to interrupt his date. If his personalities really wanted to sabotage him, now would be the prime moment to send him howling to the grave. Chloe wouldn't put up with any nonsense, he was sure, and if his imprints started fighting for control again, well, it was likely he wouldn't even make it through the dinner. And of course, she already had the upper hand; if she asked him to do anything, he would do it, perhaps even if it meant killing himself. Yes, his immorality was a sure sign that Chloe was not just another woman to him.

Perhaps she hadn't gotten the message. He'd left it in all the places he could think of that she would visit, and he had certainly given her ample time to respond, but no response had come. Or maybe he hadn't been checking the right places. Whatever the matter was, if she didn't show up he could always have a pleasant dinner with one of his more favorable imprints. It wasn't like having conversations with himself wasn't an everyday occasion. But Chloe. And all the things he'd had planned, all the realizations he had come to in the last few days. He had wanted someone to share them with. He had wanted human interaction. He had wanted to fall in love again, with someone who, it was quite possible, could love him back. After all, Chloe didn't know how many people he had murdered, or that his thoughts weren't always the most pure (then again, what human's weren't?). No, all Chloe knew was what he wanted her to know, and perhaps what she inferred, but his past had stayed locked away, just as he expected it to remain. Alpha stood by the door and peered out into the dark street. Perhaps eight hadn't been the best time to arrange for a meeting, especially with the butchers out and about. What if she was dead? No. No, Chloe could take care of herself. He pressed his cheek to the glass and half-closed his eyes. She would be fine. He would be fine. As his breath fogged against the chilled panes, Alpha realized it didn't matter who you were in love with, as long as you felt like you were in love, which, of course, in his twisted mind, made sense, despite it being garbled and a slightly misleading statement.

icons - moodymegg
lyrics - say anything

[CHLOË LAFFERTY]

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listen close to everybody’s heart
and hear that breaking sound
hopes and dreams are shattering apart
and crashing to the ground
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Chloë missed the simplicity of life; she’d known her place in the world, and nothing was going to shake her view of it. It had been a shifting place, of course, what with her projections for where she wanted to be next year (in five years; ten) but it had made sense to her. She’d had the cases that she was working on to occupy her mind, criminals to catch and interrogate, and court cases to testify at. She’d had an awesome company car, a gun and a shiny badge, and she got on well with her colleagues. Her work was everything to her, but on the odd times she let herself relax – she always took overtime if there was any going, not because she needed the money, as she’d been a smart saver ever since she could remember, but because catching the sons of bitches that killed people was pretty damn important to her – she had fun. There was the occasional boyfriend, the more frequent one-night stand, but it suited her. She didn’t want the commitment of a relationship. Now Chloë thought it might be nice to have someone to share the end of the world with. She didn’t think she’d ever felt this lonely in her life, because she’d always had work to focus on (and she was damned if she wouldn’t have ended up as Director in ten or fifteen years, if this whole removing-the-population-from-their-bodies thing hadn’t happened). Now there wasn’t work. She didn’t have any money, because banks weren’t open, she was stealing to eat and her company consisted of people that she wouldn’t have chosen, if she’d been in charge of who got to survive the apocalypse.

But she was alive; that was something. Life was difficult and she was beginning to hate it, but her survival instincts were too great to just give up and let the butchers get her. The butchers were never going to get her; Chloë would shoot all of them dead before that happened, and she hated killing people – even those who weren’t themselves anymore. She still held out hope that once they found the Dollhouse, there would be some way to make them be themselves again. They’d been made this way by tech, so there had be tech that could undo it; she didn’t really understand the ins and outs of what had happened, not on a deeply scientific level, but everything had an undo button. Control-Z; that was all they needed. To undo, and then the world wouldn’t be burning and people wouldn’t be dead and there wouldn’t be only a handful of people in the world capable of fighting the organisation that had done this to them in the first place…and she could have her old life back. The one that had made sense, where she’d known what she was doing and wasn’t terrified of having her mind wiped. The one where she caught criminals and upheld the law, and did her duty. Chloë missed having a duty to do; now she was just trying to survive, and to help the other people who were still themselves survive. It wasn’t simple, and she wasn’t a natural leader. She could do it, but she didn’t like to; she was holding out hope that there was someone else who’d take over soon. Chloë wasn’t a fan of being in charge.

However, needs must, and Chloë deemed herself the most qualified at the moment; she’d take orders from her superiors – needed orders, almost – but she had to believe them good at what they did. It wasn’t as though the end of the world was going to be an easy journey; Chloë had just never imagined it happening. She sighed, running a hand through her hair and picking out her least torn pair of jeans; she could really do with a shower, but running water was nowhere to be found. She looked down at the note again; it had been put into her hands only that morning by someone else, who’d spotted her name on it and figured she should see it. Alpha…the idea of spending time with him wasn’t an unpleasant one (although she really wished that she could shower first) – in fact, he was the only person she’d met so far that hadn’t made Chloë want to tear her hair out at their idiocy or selfishness. She liked him; he was smart and yeah, it was a little weird that they’d first met while he was chasing rabbits in the sewers, but he was attractive and she was lonely. It wasn’t a date, she was sure, but she still felt bad she hadn’t been able to RSVP; she just hoped that if she turned up at the appointed time and place, he’d be there. She could do with some company, and he seemed to know a lot about what was going on; perhaps he knew of the Dollhouse. She’d have to be subtle, of course, but interrogating people had been Chloë’s job since she’d got out of college; she knew the right strategies.

Deciding that there was nothing more she could do with her hair and she was as presentable as she would ever be, Chloë tucked a .22 calibre into one of her boots, kept her main sidearm in her hand and ventured out into the streets. She’d need to be careful, since this was prime butcher time, but Chloë could handle herself. She was always the one that they never expected to be a Fed (was she too young? Too small? Too female?), and even though the Bureau was no longer, Chloë would always be part of it; her training had been invaluable. Until now, she’d never realised quite how much. Her journey went relatively uneventfully for once, which she was grateful for – there were only a few butchers in this part of town, and the simple tactic of hiding was enough to convince them that there were no actuals around – but she was still holding her gun ready, just in case, even as she approached the restaurant. If you let your guard down at the last minute, that was when they’d strike; you could never let your guard down. Not when there were people out there who wanted to kill you. She didn’t even put the safety on until she was inside the restaurant, and only then did she look around – she hoped she was not late; even if this was just an informal meeting, to discuss tactics or whatever, Chloë hated unpunctuality.

It was only then that she turned to smile at Alpha, stowing her gun away for the moment; but he knew it was there. She knew that he knew, and that was how she wanted it to be. He didn’t need to know about the concealed one; she liked him, but she didn’t trust him entirely. Not yet. She looked around at the restaurant, and laughed. “I guess this is a date after all.”

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lyrics from 'my eyes' from 'dr horrible's
sing along blog' by jed whedon, joss
whedon & maurissa tancharoen
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[ALPHA !]

for better or worse
let's dive head first
we can think about this later when were not so jaded
so jaded

Carl William Craft had been in love once. Yes, she had driven him to do things he had only dreamed of. Once he had told her that he would do anything for her, that he would die for her; that he would kill for her. On both accounts he had followed through. It was she who had driven him mad with lust, both for sex and blood. And it was she that had discovered his aversion to screaming. Upon returning home one night and following the trail of unfamiliar clothing into the bedroom, it had been she who had triggered the psychosis. She had been his first victim. So a new love affair began for Carl. A love that would never disappoint. A love that enjoyed destroying other people as much as he did. They didn't always look like her. Perhaps the only trait the victims shared in common was happiness. He chose well, hit where he could do the most damage and then moved on. He continued moving until one day the screams got to him. The screams in his ears, pounding; his eardrums surely bleeding. And there he sat on the floor and rocked, and waited for the screaming to end, waited to make his move, waited until it was too late, and his precious knife was lost, and he was handcuffed in the back of a cop car, which eventually veered off course (after a short stay in solitary) to bring him to the insane asylum. And here he had been recruited by, or perhaps sent to, the Dollhouse. But Carl William Craft had been in love once, and it had suited him. It had made him.

Then love had again created him when Echo had walked into his life. Created him and destroyed him. She had rejected him, after all he had done for her. He had played God for her, given her back everything she had lost, with the exception of her original personality. Alpha had been coasting along as a doll, relatively happy, despite the stupidity of the other dolls he associated himself with. He hadn't had one twisted thought since entering the Dollhouse unless Topher imprinted him with them, but they kept that to a minimum, and for a long while his psychosis had been forgotten. However, Echo reached him, and Carl, and he would again fall under love's spell; do whatever had to be done to win her favor, no matter what the consequences. With consequences as great as driving his one platonic attachment, Whiskey, away, Alpha found himself on a lonely road. Not only had he destroyed his friend's face and forced her to fall even further from regaining her original personality, but Echo had not cast even a glance in his direction. So desperate measures had to be taken once more, though quite by accident this time. With the imprint gone wrong, and his composite event achieved, Alpha slaughtered the dolls and left the rest of them marked before escaping the Dollhouse. His new obsession, his new love, still hot on his mind, he sought to help her achieve her own composite event, at which time he was sure she would seek him out and thank him in the only way that would be worthy payback: loving him. But his reward never came, though he did return to the Dollhouse to reclaim it. Alpha, on his recent trips, had remained aware of Echo's absence during his visits, but he had attempted not to dwell on it. Did Echo understand that Whiskey's scars were her fault? What about Victor's? Did Echo care for her fellow actives at all? No, she was as interested in self-preservation as he was. Alpha's knife had again found thirst and fuel from a woman, and only with the apocalypse had that hunger been satisfied.

And now, this. Alpha had believed he was done with the manipulative spell so many women had cast upon him throughout the years, but now he was here again, waiting for the world to come crashing down around him; the butchers at his door, breaking in through his windows, knocking over his peanut butter jars, and all he could think about was a woman. The imprinted assassins could have been killing him right that second and he would have been wondering whether Chloe was afraid of him, or whether she would show up and find his mangled corpse. Perhaps she would cry over it. Perhaps she would seek vengeance. Or perhaps she wouldn't care at all, just as Echo didn't. In the end, he wondered if it even mattered. If the butchers did find him, and manage to kill him, maybe it would be for the best. Surely if he let himself get too attached to Chloe it would end just as all the others had ended: bloody and insane. But, illogically, Alpha clung to the hope that perhaps this relationship would be one he could continue without the fear of becoming psychotic. He had already reigned in his numerous personalities, and Alpha, the cunning and determined Alpha, was in charge. If anyone of his personalities was to keep him in line, it would be Alpha. Besides, it was still early. It was still the chase. Even if the date did go well, it wasn't as if they were together. It wasn't as if he were actually happy, yet. Perhaps in time he would break down, in time he might wake to find her bloodied corpse beside him and the knife on his side of the bedroom dresser, but in time he might be able to trust Chloe completely and sneak her into the Dollhouse and save the world. He wasn't all bad. Not anymore. Of course, he could regress to the horrible serial killer in the future, but Alpha chose not to think of this fact. For the moment he was content to believe that he could love Chloe without putting himself in danger of losing his sanity. She could protect herself, anyway, much more so than any of the actives. She, of all his loves, was the most likely to survive one of his attacks, should it come to that. Though his past screamed for him to ignore her, to treat her just as he treated any of the other actuals, he did as he always did with screams, ignored them, and prepared to take the last deep breath before boarding yet another train wreck to hell. He could, and would, love Chloe.

He loved the way she confidently strode into the restaurant. He was pleased at the way her entrance startled him and forced him to regain his cool as his head had smacked the glass and his right hand had dived for the knife at his waistline. The way she put away her gun, a signal he was sure, that said she was ready for anything. Of course, why would she trust him, especially as a result of their first meeting. He hadn't exactly been the most innocent looking of men. Alpha grinned at her, then quickly stepped away from the door as the cold sent a shiver down his spine (or perhaps it was a shiver of happiness). Would she want to know about his past tonight? Would he be obligated to tell her? Briefly he wondered if perhaps he had been too fast. If he had progressed far too easily back into his lustful tendencies. Maybe she had shown up to kill him. Maybe she was actually a butcher. But she was beautiful, and she was here, she'd shown up, and if she was a butcher, what was she waiting for. Unless Rossum wanted him for something else, he would have been dead the moment she walked in the door, perhaps before. And then she spoke. Her words, her voice, the tone, her lips moving. He didn't care if he died if it was at the hands of a voice like that. Alpha beckoned her inside and quickly bolted the door, out of habit, not recognizing that it was a potentially shady act. Did she think he would kill her, too? What if there was a battle between them? A duel to the death? Could they at least eat dinner first? It would be a shame to let such perfectly cooked food go to waste. He wondered if it bothered her that he had thought of a date soon after their first meeting, maybe even during it. Wouldn't she be happy to get away from the actuals, to think about less trivial things than the end of the world? Maybe she was all business. Alpha worried, then relaxed. What did it matter? She was here now. “I guess it is,” he said, before bustling over to the table, wringing his hands all the while. Had he come off too candid? Too tough? Gruff? Were all his thoughts playing out on his face? Could she tell he was absolutely terrified, but enthralled at the same time?

“I hope you're hungry. I wasn't sure what kind of food you liked so I made a few courses from a couple of different regions.” Did that come off as too desperate? He had only been trying to be considerate. He had been trying to be as chivalrous as possible in the dying age of the world. Alpha wanted to be her white knight, though rather than rescuing her from a tower, he sought to seduce her with foods. Perhaps being imprinted hadn't been all bad. He now understood romanticism at least. Surely he could win her over. He had made as many dishes as he had had time for, and hands for. Indian, Italian, French, Portuguese, Swedish, Thai, Japanese, Chinese. Whatever he could remember he had made. He was sure something would catch her eye. Maybe she would love him back. Irrational as the notion was, Alpha had faith that she would eventually be his. If only for a night. Maybe even tonight. Unless that was too hasty. Alpha grinned despite himself, though forced the smile to fade quickly. He was a terror, and the sooner he remembered that, and embraced it, the sooner he could come to terms with it. Did he really expect that every time he was with her he was going to be able to control his other personalities if he had to continuously and consciously expend a great deal of energy suppressing them? Alpha shook his head and pulled out her chair. Everything would be fine if he would just stop worrying and live in the present. What was the use of inviting her to dinner if he couldn't even engage her in conversation? He hadn't even made eye contact with her yet. That would be his next goal. As soon as he figured out how to remain in control of everything he was feeling. Alpha's hands curled tight on the back of the chair and he swallowed loudly. With a nervous laugh he turned to look at her, and glanced into her eyes, then away, as Carl pushed his way up from suppression. Alpha could last only so long. Perhaps it was the hunger. If he ate, he'd have more energy, and more ability to control the various aspects of himself.

And then a terrible thought occurred to him, most likely spurred by Carl: what if she'd already eaten? Would she eat again, to be polite? Or would she leave? Or maybe watch him eat? Could he last through a meal with her eyes constantly watching him? Maybe she thought he had poisoned the food? She hadn't even thought it was a date, which of course had been left unclear on the note, both in case someone else should find it, and also because he hadn't wanted to scare her away. White knights didn't act fast. Or so he had been lead to believe. Alpha didn't think it mattered anymore whether she'd eaten or not. She was here. She obviously was intrigued enough to show up at all. And that was the important bit, because half of the fun of a relationship was in the chase. Half of the fun was the intrigue, and the not knowing what would happen next, and most of all, the endless double-speak, where nothing was exactly what it meant. “You ready?”

[CHLOË LAFFERTY]

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Relationships had never been Chloë’s forte; if anything, they were the one thing that she’d never factored into her ambitions for the future. Yes, at some point, she’d like to settle down and maybe have a kid – she wasn’t overly maternal, not like some of her colleagues, who pretty much lactated the moment someone brought in a baby, regardless of the circumstances – but that was about as far as it had got. Her career was what was most important to her, and her friendships; guys came so far down the list, it wasn’t even funny. It wasn’t that she didn’t want a boyfriend, because there were times when she thought that having someone else she could rely on would be a good thing, but it was finding someone she could rely on; Chloë was there for herself. She wasn’t conceited or self-absorbed, but she’d learned that if you focussed your attentions elsewhere, you were never going to get where you wanted to, and her job meant more to her than some guy she’d probably end up breaking up with three months down the line; it was practical, really. It was practical, because she was saving herself from getting hurt; she’d seen what breaking up with boyfriends could do to people. She’d been there with the ice cream and the tissues for her friends, and seeing how utterly broken they were had convinced her that perhaps she was better off not having that level of commitment to one single person; that was how they broke your heart. Chloë had always preferred keeping her heart intact; she needed it for her work. You couldn’t do what she did without feeling things – it was your gut that told you whether or not someone was telling the truth and your heart that helped you deal with victims and their families – and a guy wasn’t worth that. A guy wasn’t worth anything, if he tore you apart. It was better to have a few casual relationships, and be alone. At least that way, you were still your own person. Chloë would never belong to anybody else.

But now Chloë was tired of being alone. She was tired of not having any friends, and not knowing if her sister was alive, and not have a job to fulfil. Was it wrong that she missed her job just as much as her friends? She’d always been career driven – it had been the only thing in her life, in fact, and she’d had more than one person comment that she probably should do more outside of it, even though Chloë knew she was as well-rounded as she needed to be – and she felt completely lost without it. It wasn’t even that she didn’t have a mission, because fighting in the resistance was a more than good enough cause, but it was disorganised and rabble-y, and she missed the efficiency and protocols of the FBI. She also missed being Special Agent Lafferty, but that was beside the point; she still had her badge, just in case; it made her feel like she might be able to help, if a situation arose, and Chloë wanted desperately to help. What had happened here was so wrong that Chloë felt compelled to try and make it better; she wasn’t just helping individual people anymore, but almost the whole population – possible the whole world, since she had no idea whether this mind-wiping thing was limited to Los Angeles or even to America. If she was an evil incorporation, though, she’d use the entire world to make an evil army out of, so it wouldn’t have surprised her if she was one of the few people still truly alive across the entire globe. It was less personal than solving one homicide and helping one person’s family, and part of Chloë missed that intimacy, but if there really was a cure, and they could really find the Dollhouse and make it happen, then she would have helped everyone. Changing the world was something that Chloë had always wanted to do, and though she’d done it in small amounts – one more murderer locked away, one more result for the grieving family – now she had the chance to really do it; the world needed to be changed. This…apocalypse that they were living in (for really, there was no other word for the state of the city around them) couldn’t go on. If it did, they’d all kill each other, and nobody would be themselves anymore. Chloë couldn’t let that happen, and she’d fight tooth and claw until they found a way to take down those evil bastards at Rossum who had done this.

It was a pretty good mission, she thought; she just wished they were more organised. And there were more of them. If the people in the base camp, plus Alpha, were the only ones still alive – and she meant that in the being-in-possession-of-their-own-minds, tattooed-with-their-names way, and not just a body being physically alive (as that was what butchers were; they were just bodies whose souls had left them—and if she’d not believed in souls before, Chloë did now) – then it truly was terrible. This many people, killed because some company had decided that they wanted to control the world? It was like a bad movie, except that it was real and it was happening and Chloë could see it right before her eyes. How many people dead? Billions, most likely, if you counted those who’d been evicted from their own bodies, which she did. How many of those had she known personally? A lot of them; there wasn’t anybody from her life who she was certain was alive now. And in this situation, Chloë didn’t consider it pessimistic to believe that they were dead; it was just realism. Chloë had always been a realist, and now she wished she wasn’t. Now she wished she could hope that it was just LA in this state, or that there was someone important who was fixing the situation as she stood here, or that the Dollhouse was something more than just a pipe dream. She thought it existed, but the idea of them finding it seemed remote at best. But now wasn’t the time to worry about that – she no longer had the problem of not enough hours in the day to get everything done; there was never enough to do and she’d taken to wandering around on her own, trying to think things through away from the camp. It might not have been entirely safe, but Chloë could defend herself.

“I hope you're hungry. I wasn't sure what kind of food you liked so I made a few courses from a couple of different regions.”

Was she hungry? If she’d not thought that it would offend him, Chloë would have laughed at that. She couldn’t remember the last time that she’d not been hungry, and eating an actual meal was even further in her distant memory; she’d resigned herself to living out of tins and packets for the rest of her life, and now Alpha asked if she was hungry? And alright, she’d not known it was a date, but if he was trying to seduce her with real meals and a place that actually looked like it hadn’t been burned and looted, then it was succeeding; she smiled at him, trying to ease his apparent nerves, and then her stomach rumbled, breaking the silence. “I’m hungry,” she confirmed, just in case the grumbly noises hadn’t been indication enough. “I can’t remember the last time I ate something that wasn’t out of a tin.” She watched him for a minute – and this was why she didn’t like first dates, where you were both so awkward and unsure of what to say to each other, scared of making the other one turn and leave before the evening had begun but wanting to have a good time, especially when you’d not seen proper food in a very long time…god, she wished she’d been able to shower – before following him towards the table, leaning over to kiss his cheek. “It all looks wonderful.” Chloë was so hungry, she didn’t even care that she’d probably end up looking like a pig once they started eating; she refrained from asking him where he’d found the food to make such delicious looking dishes, because it would probably be impolite, but she’d have to remember to ask another time. If he could do this then there had to be some source of food somewhere that they’d not found yet. And power; he had to have had power to actually cook. Chloë had to admit, she was intrigued…and not just because she was starving.

“You ready?”

Chloë was used to high pressure, life-or-death situations. She knew how to use her adrenaline to help her rather than send her into a panicked frenzy, it was almost impossible to intimidate her and she knew exactly when to squeeze that trigger and when it was best to just pretend to. At work, she only got nervous when the boss’ boss asked to see her, which had happened twice in the time she’d been working there, and neither time for disciplinary action. Therefore, she shouldn’t have been nervous now, on a date at the end of a world with a man she’d met once in a sewer and who she was pretty sure was slightly crazy, however attractive he was. She was nervous. Dating while the world was burning seemed completely ridiculous, especially for someone whose relationship track record was pitifully thin, but…she didn’t want to spend another night alone. She wanted to have someone in her life whom she actually knew, rather than was simply acquainted with. Chloë was facing the apocalypse, and whatever horrible things she’d seen in her line of work, she’d never seen the world shattering apart before. Lives, yes, but not the whole world. “Thank you,” she said, sitting down. Maybe the end of the world didn’t have to be quite so bad.

[ALPHA !]

you will say what i
never had if i tried
damned if i don't
what if i died without being with you?

If he had remembered one thing over the years, it was the euphemisms, the double-entendre, the game of stating the more volatile of his thoughts in subtext. So when he had nonchalantly stated, 'I guess it is,' with barely a glance in her direction, he was partly devastated that he had not come expecting a date, and partly crooning over his cunning and ambiguity--he had managed to keep her from deciding that he was desperate and that was the primary reason for their 'meeting.' Yet Alpha didn't truly believe he was desperate. If he had been, the dinner would not have been meticulously crafted, the electricity painstakingly rerouted (not to mention the singed fingertips would have been avoided), and the romantic, and chivalrous, fairy-tale scene created, or what he hoped was a scene lifted right out of the classics. Of course, his cool attitude failed when sensitive-Alpha took control of the situation. There was no way that mentioning his decision to cook a wide variety of dishes wouldn't evoke the image of a puppy-like and desperate man in her eyes. And so Alpha's personalities saw fit to intervene, building him back into the slightly untouchable (or give the appearance of being untouchable) apocalypse fighter that he truly was. In this world, or so the more dangerous of Alpha's imprints believed, there was no time or room for such foolishness. If you wanted something, they thought, you had better get it as quick as you could, and with whatever methods were necessary. And when at last they had sat down, the innuendos began again. What exactly did her thank you mean? Was it the appropriate response to his query? Did he truly care? He decided he would reply in kind. "Don't thank me yet."

His head twitched as he reached for one of the dishes, serving himself and putting the platter back on the cart without offering her any. And when Alpha accidentally dropped his fork on the floor, the metallic clang signified the end of the peaceful interaction. He pressed his hands to his temples, fingers gouging, groping at the skin covering his skull, as if he could expose the bone and do away with the petulant organ covering his face once and for all. At once each and everyone of his imprints clambered for the vacant thrown. The white knight, as he had wanted to portray himself, straddled one arm of the monarch's chair while Carl William Craft and his broken doll imprint occupied the other arm. But for the moment Alpha was still in charge and he smiled anxiously at her. What was it you were supposed to ask on meetings like these? Talk about the weather? Past childhood illnesses? The fact that the world outside was little more than ash heaps and twisted girders? The more important question: what could he handle talking about without needing to listen closely to her answers (dealing with multiple voices in your head made it a bit difficult to concentrate)? "So. I'm glad it didn't rain today. I had to go scavenging for all this." Carl William Craft shuffled, fell from the arm of the chair as Alpha's doll personality shoved him away. Dick. Alpha twitched again. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them one at a time. She looked different that way, like she was someone else, someone he knew--had known. She looked like Echo. There was that same confidence, the same stubborn smile, and the hard, cold eyes. Jerk. Alpha shook his head. Tried to see her again as Chloe, as the real person sitting in front of him and not the sick fantasy his imprints had called up. But no, It was Echo sitting there, eating the food he had made, looking perhaps, happy, no, grateful for his cooking skills and he hated it. He hated it. He loathed her. The way she could sit there looking so pretty, so innocent, and make him think that she hadn't been using him all this time, that she was glad he'd helped her become self-aware. But she didn't care. She was eating his food. Using him. Next she would torture the information out of him, or try to. Because she wouldn't get it. "Bitch." Unfortunately, Alpha was a moment to late to stop the utterance, as he had just regained control of his mind by the time the 'h' was out of his mouth.

“Excuse me.” He quickly escaped to the kitchen; slammed his hands down on the cutting board. It had never been as bad as this week. He had always been able to control his imprints, until she showed up. Even around Echo he had always been aware of what he was doing, but this--no, this wouldn't do—this wouldn't work. She scared him, this Chloe, the woman who walked into his restaurant with a gun, and proved that she knew how to use it in seconds flat. This was a woman who had survived the apocalypse with her mind still intact, more than he could boast. Yes, she was the superior of the two of them, and she unnerved him. He would have to be very, very cautious if he wanted to keep her friendship, perhaps if he even wanted to keep her alive. And as he was thinking the slightly murderous thought, his eyes rolled over the lovely, and versatile, set of knives stuck to the magnetic strip over the stainless steel countertops. It would be easy, so very easy, to sink one of those knives into her back. To make her writhe and squirm, to assert himself. The only kills he had made in the past months, human kills (because rabbits and other small animals didn't count), had been butchers, and there was no thrill in murdering a being that couldn't think for itself, or put up much of a fight. Perhaps Rossum had underestimated the survivors in Los Angeles. After all, he'd disappeared from their radar, as had the Dollhouse, and surely the Actual's camp wasn't under their surveillance otherwise they would have made a move on it already. What Alpha didn't understand was why Rossum wasn't imprinting their dirty-work lackeys with all the impressive espionage and military brain scans they were in charge of. Surely, Rossum wasn't getting sloppy. That wouldn't be fair. He wanted to take down the corporation in a fair fight, not with Rossum as the runt of the pack, but as the leader. But as his eyes flickered to the window in the kitchen door and out towards the table and his empty chair, Alpha remembered he had more pressing goals that he could attain. He wouldn't kill her ever. Though Carl interjected with an ominous 'yet.'

At the moment the only thing left to do was continue the dinner. Alpha headed for the door, his hand poised to push it open when another terrible thought struck him. What if she thought he was a butcher? What if she had seen, somehow (perhaps she had x-ray vision), that he had no tattoo on his back? And what if she believed his sudden outburst was a product of his transformation into a butcher? Had she grabbed her gun? Alpha couldn't see her through the window. Oh, what if she'd gone? What if she was a butcher? The man whimpered involuntarily and grabbed one of the knives from the strip. He would be prepared, no matter what awaited him. He pushed the door open cautiously, the knife blade pressed flat against the outside of his thigh. Maybe she wasn't even there. Maybe she thought the food was poisoned. Maybe she thought he wanted her dead. And in truth, did he know what he wanted from her? No. That was loony talk. Of course he knew what he wanted. He, Alpha, wanted to make it through a well deserved meal with a beautiful woman and somehow coax her to spend the night with him. This was putting it as simply as it could be said. In reality, the intricacies involved with getting any woman to look past the piles of steaming dishes placed before her and notice that perhaps the man sitting across from her wasn't half bad looking would be quite a difficult task. Add to that the fact that he'd just called her a bitch and that complicated matters much further than he hoped. Most likely, even if the rest of the dinner went smoothly, and he did not really expect it to, she would surely not be staying the night, or even if she did, only for the practical reason of not venturing out during prime butcher hour. Even if he did convince her, or perhaps bribe her with deserts and a hearty breakfast, there would be little chance of getting her to climb into any bed, let alone his own. No, for one more night, Alpha was sure he would sleep alone. ”Hope you didn't wait for me,” he said, rounding the corner and quickly taking his seat. He slid the knife into his lap. As soon as he was sure she was not going to harm him he would dispose of it, but at the moment she had every right to. ”Sorry about that. It's been awhile since I've thought about having a date.” The truth: he had never considered Echo a date, just an equal. But Chloe, Chloe was far from his equal. She was far, floating, far above him and her wisdom, well, he was terrified of it. She would see right through him.

”I'll try again.” Alpha blinked at her anxiously before turning his full attention to his plate and the food he had singed his fingers in order to cook. ”So, what'd you do before all this lovely soot and ash descended upon us?” Too formal? Too intimate a question to ask so soon? And did he really care how intimate a question it was? Alpha had always been very forward; hadn't much cared for the proper formalities. He would do as he damn well pleased, and if he chose to get to the deep questions instead of asking which Superbowl team she wanted to win, then that was okay. After all, how many dates had Chloe been on in the past? Most likely a high number, borderline infinite. How could he compete with all the other men who had come before him? What made Alpha special that he could actually discuss? ”Do you want to try something else? There's plenty to chose from.” By far the most accurate statement of the night. With forty-eight personalities you could really pick and choose what you wanted. If Chloe wanted the serial killer to sit with her all she had to do was ask. If she wanted a bank robber, he could be that too. And if she wanted a kind gentlemen, he could be quite the lady's man. Of course, it all depended on whether or not she wanted to stay.

[CHLOË LAFFERTY]

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Having someone make what had clearly been a huge effort for her was something that Chloë wasn’t used to – and it had been an effort, however sure she was that he would deny it if she happened to mention it. Alpha had got electricity from somewhere, and water, two things Chloë hadn’t seen much of in the recent months, and for someone who had been living out of tins and from dried goods, the apparent freshness of the dishes in front of her was amazing. The practical part of her wanted to ask where he’d got it all from, how he’d managed to get systems that had been down for – well, she couldn’t quite pinpoint when they had stopped having electricity and warm, running water, but it seemed to have been an extremely length period – but perhaps that was something for later. She wasn’t a romantic by any stretch of the imagination, as focussed as she’d always been on her ambitions and her career; she had never even read romance novels, and she knew a lot of high-powered women (and potentially men, for that matter) who loved to come home from whatever their day job happened to be and curl up with some trashy novel and pretend that sometime, Mr Right was going to walk in that door and whisk you off your feet. Chloë wasn’t like that; she didn’t believe in love at first sight nor did she think that having the right man in her life would fix her problems. It would be great, sure, but a relationship wasn’t a cure. No, she’d not read those kinds of books; Chloë had loved thrillers. Anything with mystery, espionage and the good guys always defeating the baddies and winning in the end, even with a few major casualties on the way had been her cup of tea; it reflected her life. She wanted to catch the bad guys, and she wanted to do it with the minimum of damage. Chloë just wasn’t sure who the bad guys were anymore; it was Rossum that was behind all this, sure, but they were just an entity. It was the butchers that they had to face every day, and Chloë couldn’t honestly blame them; they hadn’t chosen to become this. They’d not made the decision to take over the world and kill everyone who didn’t succumb to their mind-control; that was Rossum. It was all Rossum. But they were sitting up their in their tower of glass and chrome, and they were unreachable. There was a cure to all this, Chloë was sure, but it wasn’t as simple as walking into the right building with the right number of people behind her, and placing them under arrest. There was no such thing as arresting someone, for a start; laws no longer applied. Nothing applied, anymore – they were all just lost people, trying to band together in the hope that sticking together was less likely to get them killed. Would it work? Chloë couldn’t say. She was damn well going to try, though.

But she had realised that not everything had to be about work anymore. Not work in the sense that it had been before, as that part of her life was gone: no FBI, no cases, no promotions, no pay packet. Chloë didn’t have a career. She had a mission, instead, and in some ways she thought that was better. Well, aside from the fact that it wasn’t, given that the very nature of the mission meant that the world as it had been known had ended and the number of people still alive was so few that it scared Chloë to think that this was all that was left of humanity – at least in the Los Angeles area. They’d come from all over the city, now, and the numbers were pitiful. If every major city in the world had been reduced in a similar fashion, they’d be lucky if there were a thousand people in the entire world still in possession of their minds. It was absolutely terrifying. If Rossum’s plan had been to destroy the world, then they had well and truly succeeded; she couldn’t quite see the point of it, though. A lot of the cases she’d dealt with at work had been homicides, and while they had been horrific and she was extremely thankful when the time came that she could slap someone in handcuffs and read them their Miranda rights, a lot of them she could understand. Not how they had been driven to murder, but there had been reasoning in there somewhere, even if it had been flawed. What Rossum seemed to have done is created a world where whoever was in charge of the company were the only people left standing. What was the point of that? Chloë couldn’t see it. Did they want to be the only people left in the world? That was something she couldn’t understand; it was lonely, so lonely. She would never have considered herself to be someone who was lonely (comfortable with her own company, yes, but that was a different thing entirely), and yet, she guessed that actually, she was. Being here, with Alpha, made Chloë feel for the first time that she wasn’t entirely alone; this was someone on her intellect level, someone she could converse with, despite the awkwardness that had fallen now they both realised that this was a First Date (with ominous capital letters), and the effort he’d made touched her. She didn’t make this much effort with herself; there wasn’t much point, when there was nothing there anymore. And yet, the one presiding thought was that Chloë really wished she’d been able to take a long, hot shower before coming here. Was that shallow of her? She’d spent months concentrating on saving what was left of the human race; now a good-looking, nice guy had made her dinners (it had to be in the plural, because Chloë couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen this much food in one go) and she thought she was allowed to be shallow, at least for a little while.

"So. I'm glad it didn't rain today. I had to go scavenging for all this. Bitch."

“I hope it wasn’t too much trouble for you,” Chloë replied, cringing internally at how formal she sounded. This wasn’t her; thinking things over before she said them, speaking stiffly and worrying about how she was going to come off…they weren’t thing she did. She wasn’t insensitive, sure, but she was confident in herself; this situation was so far out of her comfort zone that she wasn’t entirely sure that she was feeling that confidence. She was simply projecting it, because she knew it was the best way to deal with people; if you seemed happy and comfortable, then they would too. You had to figure out the best way to get them to listen to you, to talk to you, and she thought Alpha needed her to be confident. She didn’t know why, but she wasn’t shy, retiring girl anyway. She could be blunt, sometimes, but she wasn’t reserved. She couldn’t be, not with her job. “Are you alright?” The confidence was still there, but it was wavering a little, Chloë’s whole centre being thrown off course by the prospect that this was a date. If it had just been two friends hanging out, she would have been completely fine; Chloë didn’t have the best track record with relationships, and however much she liked Alpha, however much she needed someone to spend the end of the world with…she didn’t know if she could do this. Not officially. There was an apocalypse going on outside, for Christ’s sake; she couldn’t be someone’s girlfriend. She just wanted company, that was all; she needed to relax. Take a few deep breaths, just as she would have done before entering a crime scene, and she could be herself again. Alpha seemed to like Chloë when she was herself, given that she hadn’t been trying to be anyone else when they first met; he wouldn’t have asked her here otherwise. She was simply over-thinking this whole thing. “Excuse me?” she asked, sounding more annoyed than offended; maybe she hadn’t quite got it right, then, given how out-of-the-blue that had been. She was used to being sworn at, or insulted, but she’d not expected it from Alpha; as he apparently raced from the room, unable to be with her any longer or maybe trying to control whatever it was had led to the outburst, Chloë stood up, pacing up and down a few times, holding herself tall in her annoyance and yet unable to simply leave. She’d wanted to be herself again, rather than someone who was terrified of saying the wrong thing. Well, she guessed Alpha had got her there; Chloë wasn’t nervous anymore. Perhaps she had overestimated what Alpha was like; she was going to find out, though. She could have fled, but that wasn’t like her; Chloë faced things head on. She wouldn’t have got where she was if she couldn’t face things that, frankly, completely confused her.

”Sorry about that. It's been awhile since I've thought about having a date.”

Chloë’s hand twitched towards her gun as Alpha returned, and she didn’t bother trying to hide it; she wanted him to know that she wasn’t scared of him. Confused, perhaps, and yeah, him calling her a bitch had stung a little when she’d been so sure that this was going to be a good evening, two souls meeting at the end of the world and everything, but she was a big girl; one bad word wasn’t going to scare her off, not even when it potentially signalled that there was something wrong with Alpha. Was he a butcher? God, she really, really hoped not; aside from the momentary…setback, there, she really liked him, and having to kill him because he wanted to kill her wasn’t something that she particularly wanted to do. She watched impassively as he sat back down, trying to act as though things were normal (as normal as they could be when the world was burning, the human race had been wiped and humanity was fighting to survive), and pointedly waited a few moments before rejoining him. Chloë wasn’t a pushover; he needed to know that. The moment she felt like this wasn’t working, she wasn’t going to stay. She’d lost everything in her life, and she wasn’t going to lose her pride or her dignity as well; if he wanted to shout insults at her, he’d have to do it at her back. “I don’t know what’s going on with you,” she said, and the caution of earlier had gone; this was the voice she used when she was being nice to a suspect she was interrogating; gentle, but firm, “but you’re not the only one who’s not been on a date for an extremely long time.” She leaned forwards, elbows on the table, and looked Alpha in the eye; eye-contact was the hardest thing to maintain, and yet the most important. “But that wasn’t appropriate.” She waved a hand, sure that he’d know what she was referring to; he wasn’t stupid, she knew that. “If you call me that again, I will leave here, and I can’t guarantee I won’t shoot you in the foot first, just because being insulted for no reason on a date really pisses me off.” At least Chloë could stand up for herself; she’d seen so many cases where the woman couldn’t, and it had culminated in tragedy. That wasn’t going to happen here; they were going to move on, forget it happened, and have a nice meal. She smiled at Alpha, surprisingly more comfortable now than she had been before it happened. “Could you pass the pasta, please?”

”So, what'd you do before all this lovely soot and ash descended upon us?”

Chloë had to admit, the food was absolutely delicious. She didn’t know whether the guy had been some kind of chef before or if he’d simply been someone who enjoyed cooking as a hobby, but a guy who could cook was extremely attractive; Chloë had lots of skills, but cooking wasn’t one of them. She could be completely self-sufficient, sure, but she never had enough time to make anything of this magnitude—how long had he spent in the kitchen, preparing what seemed to someone who’d been eating the bare minimum for a long time like a hundred dishes. She was trying not to seem like a pig, though; firstly, she didn’t want to seem greedy and unattractive, but she also knew that eating too much today would just make tomorrow’s tinned beans or stale crackers seem even worse. And she’d probably give herself indigestion, and Chloë really didn’t want that. “This food is…amazing,” she said, and despite earlier mishaps, she really was impressed with it all. “I can’t begin to imagine how you managed this with the world being as it is, but I’ve not had food like this in a very, very long time.” She smiled, chewing on her pasta as she considered Alpha’s question; should she tell the truth? A part of her thought that it was probably a bad idea, since mentioning that she was a Fed had a tendency to scare off even people whose worst misdemeanour had been downloading things illegally from the internet (and frankly, who hadn’t done that?), but then again, why should she lie? That wasn’t who she was anymore, and though it would always be a part of her, there was so much uncertainty in this world. The past was the only thing they could be certain of now, and clinging to those memories was what made them actuals; if she couldn’t say what she was, then she might as well have been wiped. “I worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” At the end of the day, whether there was a Bureau or not, Chloë would always be an agent; they had taken her and moulded her into who she was today, and she thanked them for that.

[ALPHA !]

feelings scare you
you never look me in the eye
don't ever change; i just want you to know
the complacency's always been staged
i was blinded until you opened up my eyes
i've always believed in you

Of course. Of course, of course, of course. He always had to make them uncomfortable: women, men, children. All of humanity looked at him and saw only what they wanted to see; only saw the mask they had painted on him with its lies (or, more accurately, half-truths) and its stereotypes, and even its petty psychological assumptions. When a woman looked at him, she saw only how to manipulate him. When a man looked at him, he saw only how to pin him to the floor. When a child looked at him, the innocent being saw only the too-sickly-sweet candy in his coat pocket with the x-ray vision the parents had provided it with. Alpha was a criminal. The worst kind of criminal. A murderer. It didn't get much worse then that in the eyes of the law (though he could think of a few examples). Alpha was used to being the, well, alpha. Perhaps it had been her confident stride through the front door that had set him off, or maybe it had been the way she so casually tossed aside her gun. Most likely it had been the way she had made eye contact at him, and his anticipation at finally being able to look someone in the eyes while they were still shining and moving rather than stiff and still. Either way, he knew now what had triggered the voices to rise up, and though he dearly wished he could control them, he realized the only way he would be able to keep them from overpowering him was if he continued to sever the connection between Chloe and himself every time his hands started to twitch and foreign words slipped up into his mouth.

And though he had been listening to her speak this whole time. Though he had heard her ask him if he was all right. And though he had heard her lecturing him on why what he had said was inappropriate, Alpha had been thinking, and thinking hard. He had not noticed how her voice slowly got louder and louder, and suddenly, when his eyes lifted from the tablecloth, there she was, right in front of him, almost close enough to press his forehead against her. He tilted his head back, scrambling with the voices that rose up from within him, and fighting the urge to lean towards her. As it always was with his luck, what he least wanted to do was the only thing he could do; his eyes darted back to the table and he muttered a short, stumbling apology. The word was difficult to pronounce and he found it difficult to concentrate when he was considering the implications of her encroachment on his personal space. She had threatened to shoot him in the foot, too. Alpha shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Soon he might have to make another escape, though this time to calm himself down. If Chloe kept surprising him, it was possible he would have to call it a night before even reaching the deserts. And as he was turning over a leaf of lettuce with his knife, he watched her thighs slowly sink back down onto the chair, and found he was again able to search her face. The tension gone, Alpha found he could easily pass the pasta, as well as the grated cheese and the "fresh" pepper.


He decided, however, it would be best to remain silent for a while as he grappled with controlling the voices in his head. Alpha picked at the serving of Greek salad he'd selected. Was she just being polite at this point? Surely he'd made much better meals in the past, but how would she know? She'd probably been raised on canned green beans and spinach. "Thank you," Alpha smiled wanly. "Oh, I'll never tell." Of course, he did have very simple ways of getting the food he needed. She remembered their first encounter in the sewers with the rabbits he was sure. Alpha was glad she was even extending a compliment to him at all. Though he wondered if it was truly a compliment or just a forced line of appreciation. The wonder in her voice made him think that she was telling the truth, but Echo had told the truth before. Echo had looked at him, and she had even kissed him once, but did that mean she loved him? No. No, it had meant nothing of the sort. Echo had merely had been interested in her own gain, and Chloe, well, Chloe could easily be manipulating him. It wasn't hard. He was a fragile thing; a vase filled with rotting flowers. How much prodding did it take to empty those flowers into the waste bin and replace them with a new, beautiful bouquet? Not long. Not long at all, and that was what would happen. He was sure of it. Alpha set the picked-at remains aside and scooped himself a helping of risotto, before offering the dish to Chloe. The least he could do was enjoy her company while she was still humoring him. Besides, Alpha thought, it could have been worse. He could have been dining with someone like Paul Ballard or Boyd Langton. At least she wasn't trying to kill him. Yet.

Well, didn't he have the best of luck with FBI agents. No only had he helped one of them uncover the Dollhouse, but he had also caused one of the loves of his life to fall for the ugly buffoon who would have been lost without Alpha's aid. And now this. The pretty FBI agent who he might just consider to be his new love interest, and all she was there for was the food. He was sure of it. She had only mentioned that it was a date at the beginning of the night to create an elaborate ruse in which she escaped unscathed and left him cutting out his heart with a butcher knife in the stainless steel kitchen. No, Alpha did not have good luck with FBI agents. Or maybe he was wrong this time. Perhaps he could put everything aside and just enjoy this--this date. Alpha smiled. There were other options he could explore if she did end up not being right for him. Oh yes, yes, Alpha had taken down FBI agents before. Besides he liked that she was dangerous. It made everything so much more interesting. In fact, it made everything so much more worthwhile. What was the point of playing games with the weak?

[CHLOË LAFFERTY]

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It would have been too much to hope for that there could be one evening in her life when everything went right, Chloë thought; this was the end of the world. There was always going to be something unexpected happening, something that tore through your perception of normality and made you realise that there was nothing normal about being one of the few people still in possession of their own minds over the entire globe. It was rather terrifying when you thought of it like that; there had been talks of armageddon and the end of the world for years, but nobody had expected it to be like this. They’d thought that one day, there would just be no Earth any more, no human race at all. Instead, there was this. There hadn’t been a fight, not initially; it had been the quietest apocalypse Chloë had ever thought possible, that was for sure. Nobody had fought, because there hadn’t been anything to fight against; one minute, you were walking down the street, listening to the radio or talking on a phone, and the next—bam! You were gone. You didn’t exist. Whoever you’d been, whatever you’d done, what family you’d had: erased. Just like that. It had been then that the fighting had started. Butchers; they were the worst things Chloë could think of. Heartless, conscienceless killers in the bodies of innocent people. It killed her inside a little bit, every time she had to kill one; it meant there was one less person who’d be able to find their way back to their old life, once they found Safe Haven and a cure for all this. It wasn’t like killing a murderer. It was so, so much worse. And there was a cure; Chloë had to believe that there was, just as she had to believe that her sister was still alive (properly alive, in her own body with her own mind) out there somewhere, or she thought she’d lose the will to keep fighting. There had to be something pushing her on; without her mission, without something she believed in so completely, Chloë was nothing. Well, perhaps she was more than nothing; she was still herself, after all. In this world, that meant everything.

But even though she had been expecting something to go wrong, Chloë had hoped with every fibre of her being that she could just have one night hanging out with someone she could actually tolerate (and yes, she’d not realised it was a date, but she wasn’t averse to that – it had been a long time since anybody had really been interested in her) where she wouldn’t have to shoot anybody, wouldn’t have to be the strong ex-agent who always had control of a situation—she just wanted to be Chloë. She didn’t get that very often now, but it would have been nice. When the world was crumbling down around your ears, it was almost impossible to relax enough to forget that, at least for Chloë; she was all-too aware that every moment she wasn’t on guard was another moment that she could get killed, or worse, wiped. She was on red alert all the time, and it was wearying. She didn’t exactly trust Alpha, because you couldn’t trust anybody any more, but she’d thought that he was somebody she didn’t have to keep an eye on all the time. She should have known not to leap to conclusions; hadn’t her life before the end of the world taught her that? But maybe she’d needed to let out some of the tension that seemed to permanently inhabit her body. She didn’t understand what had happened to Alpha to make him suddenly change into practically a different person, but now that he had stumbled over an apology that she accepted with a short nod, things seemed better. Now that the bad thing she’d expected had happened, relieving some of the tension that practically had her looking over her shoulder, Chloë could get on with the evening and perhaps even enjoy herself. The food was amazing, and the incident aside, Chloë genuinely liked Alpha. It made a change, since pretty much every Actual still alive annoyed her—although that tended to be because they weren’t Gemma. It wasn’t their fault, of course, but every time she looked at them, she wondered what had happened to her sister. She didn’t get that with Alpha; he didn’t remind her of Gem at all. It was a good thing; it was nice not to have to worry, just for a little while. Everybody needed time off from that.

"Thank you. Oh, I'll never tell."

It would have been easy to dive straight in and eat enough to feed a family of four (what would have fed a family of four, in the old days), but Chloë was reluctant to do that; she had no desire to eat so much of this amazing food that Alpha had prepared that she could no longer survive on tinned and dried goods. It had taken a long time for the cravings for a proper meal to go away – even for things that Chloë hadn’t actually liked all that much – and she didn’t want to invite them back again. She wasn’t starving, not like children in Africa had been (were there still children in Africa? It wasn’t like they had telephones for the waves to be transported down...butchers had probably been there, though), but everything that Alpha presented to her was so rich, so full of flavour. Chloë wasn’t honestly sure how much she could eat, even though every instinct was telling her to dive in. It was so overwhelming – not at all what she’d been expecting. And though she might maintain an unruffled exterior to everything, taking whatever came at her in her stride, that wasn’t always the case inside. Sure, it took a fair amount to get under her skin, because you couldn’t work for the FBI and let the tiniest word break you (criminals liked to try, when they were handcuffed and couldn’t resort to physical violence), but this was—it was amazing. Amazing and terrifying and God, she was so hungry. What they were going to do when they’d raided every shop within walking distance, Chloë hadn’t a clue. “Ah, no, thank you,” she said at his offer of risotto, “I think I’ll stick with the pasta for now.” So they were still being overly polite, then. She cleared her throat, forced herself to relax, and laughed as he told her that he wouldn’t be sharing his secrets. “I wouldn’t bet on that,” she added, a slight teasing note in her voice. “People tend to spill their secrets to me eventually.” If she was honest, though, despite the teasing, Chloë felt extremely awkward; she wasn’t used to a situation where she wasn’t sure of what was happening, at least not in the day-to-day business. He’d caught her off-guard from the moment she’d realised this was more than she’d anticipated, and Chloë tended not to enjoy being wrong-footed. And yet, it was kind of nice to know that even in a world where technology could take away your mind, a world where she already knew that people were not what they seemed and very little to do with the human psyche surprised her, there was still somebody who’d managed to do that. It was nice. A little scary and completely uncomfortable, sure, but nice. She didn’t necessarily understand Alpha, but Chloë thought there were worse people to spend the end of the world with. Not that she was settling, or anything; she liked him, a lot. There was an energy between them, and he was keeping her on her toes in a completely different way to the butchers—and he was helping her to forget about the world outside, just for a little while. Chloë thought they all needed to forget.

Not entirely, of course, but moments like this could be precious. How many nights had she lain awake, so many thoughts running through her head that she didn’t drop off until only a couple of hours before she needed to get up again? And when she went back to the camp, there would be so many things to do. Chloë tucked her hair behind her ear, smiling at Alpha; she had absolutely no desire to go back whatsoever. She needed to, because there were so few Actuals who could actually lead the rest to the Dollhouse, and then on to Safe Haven, but she didn’t want to. Maybe she wouldn’t have to go back tonight; she had no idea where Alpha lived, but he managed to keep himself safe while being away from the camp. It seemed like a pretty sweet deal, if you asked her. She had no aversion to helping – more to the point, she needed to help – but she was growing antsy, being there twenty-four hours a day. Now wasn’t the time to think of that, though; there was a great meal in front of her, and hopefully they’d hang out afterwards, and maybe she wouldn’t have to go back until tomorrow. Of course, for that to happen, they had to stop being so awkwardly polite, and be more like they’d been down in the sewer. It was because this was now classed as a date that she felt pressured, Chloë was sure of it. Oh well, then, if this was a date, she might as well carry on with the small-talk, at least for now. “So, what did you do, before all this? If you ask me, I’d have you down as a chef,” she decided, leaning back and studying him, popping another piece of pasta in her mouth. If he wasn’t a chef, then he’d certainly cooked as a hobby. Chloë couldn’t see another way for the food to be so good. “Of course, you’ll probably surprise me.”